Condor from Font Bureau

Posted March 18, 2015

One of the atypical typeface styles we don’t commonly associate with web design is the thick-thin sans serif — type with strong contrast between its thick and thin strokes. The genre, historically associated with commercial lettering, architectural landmarks, or automobile nameplates of the 1920s–50s, was rarely seen in any contemporary design, until recently. Condor lands at Webtype just in time for this debonair style to come back in vogue. David Jonathan Ross fused the high-contrast sans with a rationalized structure of flattened curves and wide-open apertures which gives it an elegance while still remaining usable in a variety of contexts.

The Condor family has an unusually broad range of weights and widths: from taut, compact weights to bright, airy styles. The face is particularly well suited for all-caps settings which have their own distinctive atmosphere, lending a monumental or distinguished air to headlines or logos.

Condor offers three stylistic alternates accessible via OpenType features: a single-story ‘a’, a spurless ‘u’ with unconventional contrast, and a tailed ‘l’. There’s also a ‘www’ discretionary ligature in there as further proof that despite its Art Deco roots, this is a child of the digital era.